Page 38 of Echoes of Us

T hey packed in silence as the sun rose higher, Sarah helping her throw essentials into a duffel bag.

Neither mentioned the dress from last night, which was now crumpled in the corner like evidence of a crime.

When Ashley emerged from a quick shower, her face was scrubbed clean, but her eyes were still red.

Sarah was waiting by the door, car keys dangling from her finger.

"Take it," she said simply, pressing the keys into Ashley's palm. "Just... let me know when you get there."

Some friendships didn't need explanations. Some just understood.

The early morning fog hung low over campus as Ashley threw her duffel bag into the backseat.

Her phone sat dark in her pocket. Too many notifications to face right now.

She'd email her professors later and make up for some family emergency.

Right now, she just needed to drive. Needed the steady hum of wheels against the pavement, needed the distance between her and Yale to grow until she could breathe again.

The sun was barely breaking through the mist when she pulled out of the parking lot.

Through her rearview mirror, she watched the physics building disappear, its gothic spires fading like a dream she was finally waking from.

Somewhere in those halls, Cole was probably still in the lab.

Or maybe he'd gone home too. Or to Marie.

Her hands tightened on the steering wheel.

Three hours later, Ashley found her mother in the garden, kneeling among her roses with gardening gloves that had seen better days. The morning sun caught the silver in her hair - when had that appeared? She looked up as Ashley approached, her smile soft but knowing.

"Tea?" her mother offered, pulling off her gloves. It was their ritual, had been since Ashley was little - serious conversations happened over tea at the kitchen table.

Minutes later, they sat across from each other, steam rising from delicate cups her mother only used for these moments. The kitchen smelled of Earl Grey and fresh soil from her mother's shoes.

"How did you do it?" Ashley asked finally, her fingers tracing the cup's rim. "Stay, I mean. After everything that happened."

Her mother's hands stilled around her cup. They didn't talk about this - about the affair, about the choices made. But something in Ashley's voice must have told her this wasn't just idle curiosity.

"Life isn't always what we expect it to be," her mother said carefully. "Sometimes... sometimes we have to look at what we have, not what we've lost."

"But he-" Ashley stopped, the words sticking in her throat.

"Hurt me?" Her mother's smile held a wisdom Ashley hadn't noticed before. "Yes. Badly. But life isn't just one season, sweetheart. What feels like winter doesn't last forever."

"That sounds like letting him off easy."

"No." Her mother's voice turned firm. "It was a choice.

My choice. Not because it was easy or right or because of what anyone else would do.

But because..." She paused, considering her words.

"Because I loved the life we'd built. Because I loved him, even when I hated him.

And because I wanted you to have your father. "

Ashley stared into her tea, watching patterns form in the liquid. "Seems like a poor reason."

"Maybe. But it was mine." Her mother reached across the table, her hand covering Ashley's.

"I'm not saying it's what everyone should do.

God knows most of my friends thought I was crazy.

But look at us now - we have game nights and family dinners and your father's terrible attempts at new recipes.

It's not perfect, but it's ours. And I wouldn't trade it. "

"But how did you know?" Ashley's voice cracked slightly. "That it would be worth it?"

"I didn't." Her mother's honesty was gentle but absolute. "That's the thing about life, sweetheart. We make choices without knowing the ending. We just... hope. And sometimes, that hope pays off."

Tears pricked at Ashley's eyes. "And when it doesn't?"

"Oh, honey." Her mother squeezed her hand. "What's really going on?"

The dam broke. Tears spilled down Ashley's cheeks as everything tumbled out.

"I've made such a mess of everything. Every time I try to fix something, it just gets worse.

I hurt people I care about, and I made choices that seemed right but weren't, and now.

.." She wiped uselessly at her face. "Now I don't even want to be there anymore. Everything I touch falls apart."

Her mother stood, coming around the table to wrap her arms around Ashley's shoulders. She smelled like roses and afternoon sun and home. "Then maybe," she said softly, "it's time to stop trying to fix things and create a fresh start for yourself. Whatever it may mean for you."

Ashley leaned into her mother's embrace, letting herself cry properly for the first time since this whole mess began. For Cole, for Dale, for the future she remembered and the present she'd managed to complicate so thoroughly.

"I don't know how," she whispered.

"Nobody does," her mother said, stroking her hair like she used to when Ashley was small. "We just... keep going. And sometimes, when we stop trying so hard to control everything, things have a way of working themselves out."

* * *

Ashley stayed home for three days.

"Three days," her mother had said, hands wrapped around her morning coffee.

"That's how long it takes to know if a big decision is right.

The first day you're emotional, the second you're rationalizing, but the third.

.." She'd smiled, soft and knowing. "The third day is when you finally feel it in your bones. "

So Ashley waited. She baked cookies with her mother, listened to her father's enthusiastic reviews of local restaurants, and let the silence of her childhood home wash over her. Her phone remained off, a dark rectangle on her bedside table that held a world she wasn't ready to face.

On the third morning, she turned it on.

The notifications flooded in like a tidal wave.

Missed calls, texts, voicemails. Sarah's name appeared most frequently, followed by a string of concerned messages from Mike and Lisa.

Dale had texted twice - simple, careful messages asking if she was okay.

Even Ezra had tried to reach her, his texts increasingly annoyed.

Nothing from Cole.

She waited until evening before calling Sarah when the sun had turned her room golden, and she felt steady enough to speak the words she'd been rehearsing.

"How are you?" Sarah demanded, concern lacing her voice.

"I'm transferring to Harvard," Ashley replied bluntly. The words felt like a relief, like finally exhaling after holding her breath too long.

The silence that followed felt heavy enough to touch.

"You're what?!"

"Next semester." Ashley lay back on her childhood bed, watching familiar shadows dance across her ceiling. "My grades are good enough. I can finish this semester remotely."

"Is this about Cole?"

"No." Ashley closed her eyes, remembering how he'd crouched before her in the lab, still so perfectly himself.

For now. "It's about me. About seeing things, I can't unsee.

About..." She thought of her mother's hands in the garden, steady now where they used to shake.

"About letting go before things completely break. "

"What things?" Sarah demanded.

"Everything." The word came out painfully. The future she remembered, the man she'd married, the imposter he'd learned to become. "I can't stay and watch what happens next."

"You're not making sense."

"I know." Ashley opened her eyes, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars she'd stuck to her ceiling years ago. "But I need to do this."

"And Dale? The research position?"

"Dale will understand." She hoped he would, anyway. "Better than anyone."

Sarah was quiet for a long moment. "You're sure about this?"

"More sure than I've been about anything." Ashley's voice steadied. "I need to get away from the physics department. From the Westwoods. From everything."

Sarah sighed, long and deep. "Well, shit. I can't say I understand, but you did warn me after all."

"About what?"

"That you'd bail the moment things got complicated here." Sarah's laugh was soft, sad. "After I won our bet about Yale? You said you'd transfer to Harvard the second you stopped liking it here."

Ashley's throat tightened at the memory she didn't have - another moment from this timeline she'd missed. "Sounds like something I would say."

They talked a bit longer - about practical things, about credits transferring, about Sarah visiting. But underneath it all ran a current of certainty Ashley hadn't felt since waking up in this timeline.

Sometimes, the bravest thing isn't fighting harder. Sometimes, it's running before history can repeat itself.